No governance-for-money
Funding does not buy votes, board seats, vetoes, roadmap control or unrelated institutional positions.
Exergism Commons · institutional capacity
Funding that increases freedom to act.
Exergism Commons does not optimise for the largest grant. It builds a diversified portfolio of capital, capability, infrastructure, legitimacy and networks — and converts part of that success into institutionally owned permanent capital.
Public by default. No governance-for-money. No private claim on EC capital.
The constraint
Funding should leave the commons more capable of refusing capture than it was before.
01 · Live opportunity intelligence
Funding & network pipeline
Structured opportunities are scored across value, capability, optionality and risk. The composite signal is a non-binding heuristic; governance decisions still require human review.
No opportunities match the current filters.
02 · Active proposals
Applications under construction.
Proposal state is generated from canonical Git-tracked metadata. Narrative, budget and provenance remain inspectable in the repository instead of being maintained as a second private copy.
No active proposals are currently recorded.
03 · Anti-capture architecture
Capital without surrendering the institution.
Funding is useful only if it leaves EC with more durable agency than before. These safeguards make dependence visible and external control expensive.
IP firewall
Pre-existing EC assets remain under EC or project governance. Exclusive control is treated as high capture risk.
Diversification by design
A single funder above 30% of rolling 24-month income triggers diversification; above 50% is strategic dependency.
No private ownership
Membership never becomes an economic share in EC income, reserves, Endowment principal or investment returns.
05 · Capital model
Multiple engines. No single lifeline.
The desired architecture mixes external funding, flexible income, liquid resilience and permanent capital so that no programme becomes synonymous with EC's survival.
European research
Horizon Europe, MSCA and adjacent programmes: research capacity, staff, publications and consortium access.
Open-technology grants
NLnet and comparable funders: sharply scoped infrastructure with high autonomy value and reusable outputs.
Unrestricted base
Memberships, donations, sponsorships, training and mission-aligned services: flexible capital that lets EC decline bad deals.
Strategic Reserve
Progress from three to six to twelve months of operating runway, without pretending restricted grant money is free cash.
EC Endowment
Long-duration capital owned by EC, intended to compound and finance an increasing share of future mission expenditure.
06 · Permanent capital
The EC Endowment.
A long-term pool of institutional capital designed to make EC progressively less dependent on grants, donors, sponsors, customers and political cycles.
Owned by EC
Donors, founders and members do not receive repayment, investment returns, residual ownership or governance rights merely because capital enters the Endowment.
Preserve the principal
Mature-state ordinary distributions target up to 4% of a trailing multi-year Endowment value; principal is presumptively permanent institutional capital.
Compound successful years
After adequate operating liquidity and reserves, part of unrestricted surplus should be capitalised instead of automatically becoming recurring expenditure.
Pay work, not ownership
Members may be compensated for genuine work under EC policy and applicable law. Compensation never becomes a dividend or pro-rata claim on Endowment returns.
07 · Network capital
Funding is also a graph.
The repository tracks institutions that can expand EC's opportunity surface: research hosts, public bodies, digital-commons networks, open-source funders and future consortium partners. A useful relationship can be worth more than a one-off grant.
EC
NLnet
MSCA
COST
DC-EDIC
Horizon
Work in public
Build capital without creating owners.
Opportunity dossiers, proposal work, treasury rules, Endowment safeguards, compensation principles and anti-capture architecture live in the public repository.